


Don't Call me Kitty

by BigJellyMonster (orphan_account)



Series: Harry Potter Prompts [16]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Kid Harry, M/M, Time Travel, Tom is a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-31 15:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8584333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/BigJellyMonster
Summary: Tom travels back in time accidentally and turns into a cat.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Tomarry prompt! To change things up (or not). Tom is experimenting with spells, especially time-focused spells, and he ends up making an explosion that sends him forward in time. As a cat. And he ends up in Little Whinging, because he only traveled to like 1987 or something, so Harry is the closest thing to himself than he can get without ending up in a horcrux hiding place. Tom can get all the facts from Mrs Figgs' cats and Harry is more than happy to befriend a cat. Maybe some parseltongue.

He never thought that he would doubt his abilities as much as he did at that moment. Magic, he knew, had laws like muggles and their gravity laws that should have been unbreakable. So, when he arrived in a place that looked completely different from his own time, he wanted to scream his head off for multiple reasons.

Instead, all that came out was a loud meow of a cat.

There was no logical reason his experiment should have worked. He wasn’t even finished putting it all together for the _actual_ time travel experiment. The fact that he was also now a feline, made him even more frustrated and confused. How in the hell did this happen?

He racked his furry head again and again but still, without the remains of his experiment or his notes, he had no hope of ever discovering what had happened. The fact that he was not in extreme pain right was also a mystery to him.

The horcruxes that had kept him bound to the earth would have been cut off from him for however long into the future he had traveled. Had they been destroyed? Were they too far away now to properly sense their presence?

Tom looked around until he found a street name Privet Drive. First thing he needed to do, was get some food. Often, he would work hours on end without food or rest, and right now he was definitely feeling the effects. He found a house off to the side and settled himself in the garden. No one would see him there unless they actually looked.

Exhaustion took him over faster than the hunger and he fell asleep almost instantly. Using his magic to travel through time, even if it was an accident, used an enormous amount of magical power. Any wizard no matter how powerful would have felt the same.

He slept until the early morning. The sun was just rising in the sky and the muggles were leaving to head off to their jobs or to run errands. Sounds of cars passing and people moving around did nothing to wake him. It wasn’t until he heard a small voice near him that he had even begun to open his eyes.

“ _You can’t bite the kitty, its sleeping that’s not fair,”_ The soft voice hissed.

“ _I can if it’s going to kill me. Cats love to torture and play with their food, and I would be food. It would only be one little bite anyway,”_ a voice hissed back.

Parseltounge was something Tom could easily recognize having spoken it all of his life. He didn’t know if he could speak it now, but he had to try. “ _I can hear you, you know.”_ He hissed irritated. “ _If you bite me I won’t be responsible for what I do to you little pest.”_

“ _The kitty can talk!”_ Tom heard the small voice say. He opened his eyes and saw a little boy no more than five years old wearing gardening gloves and staring at him with wide green eyes. _“I didn’t know I could talk to kitties, too! Why haven’t Mrs. Figg’s kitties ever said anything to me?”_

 _“You can’t talk to cats. They shouldn’t be able to speak like us,”_ the snake hissed angrily. _“How are you doing that?”_

 _“The kitty is speaking like a snake? That is so cool! Can I teach other animals to talk like a snake? I could have so many more friends that way. I bet-“_ the little boy was cut off.

“ _Who are you? Where am I?”_ Tom asked the little boy. He had never met another human speaker before. Maybe his luck was about to change.

“ _My name is Harry Potter. You are in surrey London. I live in the house here with my relatives. What’s your name kitty?”_ Harry smiled happily at him.

“ _Don’t…call me kitty. My name is…”_ Tom paused. What should he say? He never liked his birth name, it always reminded him how horrible muggle his heritage was. Using his chosen name might cause complications for his current self, if there was a self of him in this time. So, what should he have the child call him? “ _My name is Marvolo.”_

“ _Marlo? That’s a weird name for a kitty, but that’s okay. It’s better than the name Mrs. Figg gives her kitties. She calls them things like Mr. Tubbles, and snowball.”_ Harry told him happily.

“ _Don’t call me kitty.”_ Tom hissed in irritation.

“ _Well, Marlo. How can you speak like a snake?”_ The snake interrogated.

“ _Why are you still here little pest? Did you say that cats like to play with their food?”_ Tom smirked like only a cat could.

“ _Bye little hatchling. I know when I’m not wanted,”_ The snake raced off before Tom could make true on his promise.

“ _That was really mean. You need to say you are sorry.”_ Harry crossed his arms at Tom.

Before Tom could answer, a woman with a loud and irritating voice shouted through the window. “You better not be slacking off again you little brat. If the garden isn’t done by lunch time, you aren’t getting any! Stop talking nonsense like a freak and bet back to work!”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia.” Harry said meekly and immediately started pulling weeds. “ _Sorry, Marlo. I have to talk and work at the same time. I understand if it would be boring to you. There aren’t a lot of mice around here either. Mrs. Figg’s cats eat them all. But, if you wait long enough and I can finish this on time, you can have some of my lunch.”_

Tom sat there and watched as Harry worked harder than any young boy should know how to do. He could feel his stomach growling at him, demanding that he eat something soon. Harry’s destressed face as he realized he might not get finished on time, made Tom compare his childhood to what he was witnessing now.

He didn’t understand why he was feeling so much pity for the boy, he hardly felt anything anymore after all thanks to his Horcruxes. But, he couldn’t help but feel rage on the boy’s behalf. With an impromptu plan in place, Tom stood up and without a word, walked over to the house next door.

It smelled strongly of cats and to his relief, he was right in guessing that a pet door was provided on the back door. “ _This must be Mrs. Figg’s house,”_ he hissed to himself.  It was easy to get into the house, but he wasn’t prepared for what he saw when he got in there.

More cats that he was prepared for all stopped what they were doing and looked at him with intelligent eyes. “ _shit_ ,” he hissed. They weren’t just any cats they were kneezles, and they could tell that he was not normal as well.

Some looked at him ready to attack, while others looked curiously on at his presence. His next move would either save his life or kill him. “ _uh… Hello?”_ Tom hissed. He would have spoken as a normal animal does, but he did not know how to do that. “ _The little boy next door is hungry and probably won’t be able to get anything to eat for a long while… I just came to grab us something…”_

Tom waited to see if they understood him, but none of the cats moved. He hoped that they would at least show some sign of understanding. Slowly, Tom put one paw forward and still the other cats did nothing. “ _I’ll just… get something then.”_ They eyed him as he moved into the kitchen and tried to find something he could carry in his mouth. There wasn’t much. Everything was either in a box too big for him, or too high for him to get to and he wasn’t experienced enough in his new body to jump that high.

Frustrated, Tom wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to help Harry if he couldn’t even figure out how to steal some food. He almost jumped out of his furry skin when he turned around and saw several cats standing behind him, one with a bag of cold chicken in its mouth and the others standing near the open fridge.

“ _uh…thanks?”_ Tom took the plastic bag from the other cat in his mouth. There was more than enough in the bag for him and Harry. The other cat nodded and followed him out the small pet door to watch him rush back to the other house. Tom had never in his life experienced anything so strange. He would never take an animals intelligence for granted again.

When he arrived back in front of Harry it was to see him with small tears in his eyes. “ _Oh, you’re back! I thought you had left. What do you have there?”_ Harry took the bad from Tom and his eyes widened when he realized what it was. _“Marlo, how did you get this? It isn’t nice to steal from other people.”_

 _“It was given to me actually. Now hurry up and open it, I am starving.”_ Tom nudged Harry with his nose to get him to hurry.

Together, they ate under the shade of the house, hidden behind the rose bushes. Tom noticed, to his embarrassment, that he was being pet while he ate his breakfast and he was purring form it. If he were human, he would have snapped or cut the hand off anyone who would have dared to do such a thing. But, looking into the innocent eyes of the little boy made him keep his mouth shut and enjoy the attention.

“ _Thank you,”_ Harry said when all of the food was gone. “ _That was the best meal I’ve had in ages. I don’t have anything to give you in return.”_ He looked up in thought for a moment before smiling and running into the house. When he returned he was carrying a piece of paper in his hand. “ _I know you might not have anywhere to put this but here. I made this at school today. I worked really hard on it and I want you to have it.”_

Harry opened the piece of paper and Tom’s interest immediately peaked. It was a childish drawing of what was obviously a wizard in black robes casting the killing curse on a woman with red hair.

“ _My teacher said I shouldn’t be drawing scary things at school and that I needed to show my aunt, but she doesn’t like it when I do things that aren’t normal.”_ Harry told him sadly.

Tom smiled in only a way a cat could and hissed “ _Harry you and I are going to be great friends.”_


End file.
